St. Joseph Commute Time Map & Patterns

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Commuting in St. Joseph, Missouri: how long it takes, when people leave home and how they get to work. Ask Map AI about any address.

You 9/24/26, 4:08 PM

How much time do drivers in St. Joseph spend on the road daily?

Map AI 9/24/26, 4:08 PM

Commute Time Burden in St. Joseph: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in St. Joseph spend about 26 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 110 hours, about 4.6 full days, spent commuting. That is 37% less time on the road than the Missouri average of 21.0 minutes each way, a difference of 7.8 minutes.

St. Joseph holds about 1.1% of Missouri's population but accounts for roughly 0.7% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in St. Joseph would save about 44 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,363 at the same national wage assumption used above.

Area	One-Way Commute	Daily Round-Trip	Yearly Time Spent	Estimated Yearly Cost	Local Road Traffic (VPD)
St. Joseph	13.2 min	26.4 min	110 hrs/yr	$3,408	1,489
Missouri	21.0 min	41.9 min	175 hrs/yr	$5,415	923
United States	22.4 min	44.8 min	187 hrs/yr	$5,790	1,355

The estimated yearly cost applies a single national rule of thumb (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics average hourly earnings), not a measurement of wages in this area - treat it as a rough estimate, not a paycheck figure. Local road traffic counts, vehicles per day on non-highway roads, come from proprietary Ticon and TrafficZoom data.

St. Joseph Commute Map

On average, it takes 13.2 minutes to get to work in St. Joseph. That's 41% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

The most common departure window is 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM, followed by 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 7.2% work from home.

How People Get to Work in St. Joseph

Riding a motorcycle is unusually common in St. Joseph: 4.9 times more than the Missouri average (0.6% vs 0.1%).

Public transit is unusually rare in St. Joseph: 3.6 times less than the Missouri average (0.2% vs 0.8%).

Biking is essentially absent in St. Joseph, versus 0.2% in Missouri.

Commute Mode Trends in St. Joseph, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in St. Joseph get to work, as a share of all workers aged 16 and over, across 16 U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey (ACS) releases from 2009 to 2024. Each release is a 5-year estimate: the 2024 figures cover surveys taken from 2020 to 2024. Because neighboring releases share most of their survey years, the lines move gradually, and a sudden change such as the rise of remote work in 2020 spreads across several releases. Hover over or tap a line to highlight it, and use the legend to show or hide a mode. Driving starts hidden so the smaller modes stay readable.

Share of workers aged 16 and over, by ACS 5-year release year. Source: U.S. Census Bureau.

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Walked	Motorcycle	Other	Public Transportation	Taxi	Bicycle
2009	93.6%	2.3%	2.1%	0.3%	0.5%	0.7%	0.4%	0.0%
2010	93.2%	2.4%	2.0%	0.4%	0.6%	1.0%	0.4%	0.0%
2011	92.8%	2.2%	2.4%	0.2%	0.8%	1.2%	0.3%	0.0%
2012	92.9%	2.2%	2.3%	0.3%	0.8%	1.2%	0.2%	0.1%
2013	93.9%	2.0%	1.9%	0.3%	0.4%	1.4%	0.1%	0.1%
2014	93.2%	2.0%	2.0%	0.5%	0.6%	1.5%	0.2%	0.1%
2015	93.5%	1.9%	1.8%	0.4%	0.7%	1.3%	0.2%	0.1%
2016	93.6%	2.0%	2.0%	0.4%	0.6%	1.0%	0.2%	0.1%
2017	93.7%	2.2%	1.7%	0.4%	0.8%	1.0%	0.1%	0.1%
2018	93.1%	2.2%	2.0%	0.3%	1.0%	1.0%	0.2%	0.1%
2019	93.4%	2.4%	1.7%	0.3%	1.1%	0.8%	0.3%	0.1%
2020	92.3%	3.8%	1.5%	0.2%	0.9%	0.8%	0.4%	0.0%
2021	91.8%	4.6%	1.4%	0.2%	0.9%	0.7%	0.3%	0.0%
2022	91.6%	5.6%	1.4%	0.1%	0.7%	0.4%	0.3%	0.0%
2023	90.4%	6.9%	1.3%	0.2%	0.6%	0.3%	0.1%	0.0%
2024	90.3%	7.2%	1.2%	0.6%	0.3%	0.2%	0.2%	0.0%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share peaked in 2013 at 93.9%. Overall it fell from 93.6% in 2009 to 90.3% in 2024, down 3.3 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 5 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in St. Joseph: its share of workers rose from 2.3% in 2009 to 7.2% in 2024, up 4.9 percentage points. Most of that increase, 4.8 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Walking lost the most ground, falling from 2.1% to 1.2% of workers (down 0.9 percentage points).

Commute Start Times in St. Joseph

What Time Do People Leave for Work in St. Joseph?

The bars show when commuters in St. Joseph leave home for work, as a share of everyone who commutes (people who work from home are not counted), from the 2024 ACS 5-year estimates. The thin violet marks show Missouri for comparison. Hover over or tap a row for the exact numbers.

12:00-4:59 AM		6.3%
5:00-5:29 AM		4.4%
5:30-5:59 AM		4.8%
6:00-6:29 AM		7.5%
6:30-6:59 AM		8.6%
7:00-7:29 AM		12.6%
7:30-7:59 AM		12.6%
8:00-8:29 AM		9.4%
8:30-8:59 AM		3.3%
9:00-9:59 AM		4.7%
10:00-10:59 AM		2.2%
11:00-11:59 AM		1.6%
12:00-3:59 PM		10.1%
4:00-11:59 PM		11.9%

St. Joseph Missouri Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in St. Joseph is 7:30-7:59 AM, when 12.6% of commuters leave home, compared with 13.6% across Missouri. Early starts are more common than in Missouri: 15.5% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.5% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in Missouri: 43.2% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 49.1% there. About 1 in 3 commuters (30.5%) leave at 9 AM or later, which usually points to shift work, flexible hours or part-time jobs.

When people leave matters as much as how far they go. Rush-hour traffic shrinks how much ground a 20-minute trip covers, so a trade area drawn as a simple circle often takes in neighborhoods that customers or staff would never drive from and misses others that are an easy trip. A drive-time zone, also called an isochrone, outlines every place within a set number of minutes of an address, which makes it the more honest way to size a store's catchment, a hiring area or the commute from a new home.

See it for yourself on the interactive map: click any spot in St. Joseph, pick a 5, 10, 15 or 30-minute drive and see the local demographics of the people who live within that exact drive time.

Is St. Joseph Waking Up Earlier? Typical Departure Time, 2009-2024

Each line follows the typical (median) departure time: the moment by which half of commuters have already left home. Higher on the chart means a later start. Setting St. Joseph next to Missouri and the U.S. shows whether local mornings are drifting earlier or later than everyone else's. The figures span 16 ACS 5-year releases, so changes build up gradually rather than jumping from one year to the next.

Median time commuters leave home, by ACS 5-year release year. Source: U.S. Census Bureau.

Show typical departure times by year

Year	St. Joseph	Missouri	United States
2009	7:40 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:40 AM	7:33 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:42 AM	7:33 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:39 AM	7:33 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:40 AM	7:33 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:43 AM	7:33 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:42 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:41 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:42 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:38 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:37 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:40 AM	7:32 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:42 AM	7:32 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:43 AM	7:32 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:44 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:44 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in St. Joseph were on the road by 7:44 AM, 4 minutes later than in 2009 (7:40 AM). Across Missouri, the typical start barely moved over the same years. Commuters in St. Joseph now leave 6 minutes later than the typical American commuter (7:38 AM). Since the 2019 release, which covers the years just before the pandemic, the typical start in St. Joseph has moved 7 minutes later.

How does St. Joseph's commute time compare?

Metric	St. Joseph	Missouri	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	13.2 min	21.0 min	22.4 min
Departure Window	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM
Secondary Departure Window	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	7.2%	13.0%	15.0%
Walked	1.2%	1.8%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.2%	0.8%	3.2%

The average commute time in St. Joseph is 13.2 minutes, shorter than the 21.0 minutes in Missouri.

0.2% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.8% in Missouri. 1.2% commute by walking, lower than the 1.8% in Missouri.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in St. Joseph, Missouri.

How much does the average commute cost workers in St. Joseph, Missouri?

Commuters here spend an estimated 110 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $3,408 at a typical national wage. That's 37% less than the typical Missouri commuter spends.

When is rush hour worst in St. Joseph, Missouri?

Traffic peaks between 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM in St. Joseph, Missouri. Leaving before or after this window is the single easiest way to avoid the heaviest local congestion, though 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM also sees a secondary bump.

Do people use public transit in St. Joseph, Missouri?

Public transit usage is significantly lower here than typical: about 0.2% of commuters use it versus 0.8% in Missouri, meaning a personal vehicle is essential for most workers.